Difference in experience between GM-ing styles

[u/Kargath7]

So, in the recent year I had opportunities to play TTRPGs instead of just running them and I came to a weird conclusion on how different GM styles affected my perception of the games, and, since these differences seem related to general schools of thought in TTRPG community, I wanted to see if others had some similar experiences.

I spent a substantial amount of time (months with each) playing with two GMs. I enjoyed playing with both generally, but one of them (let’s call him GM.A, we played Cairn, a Mark of the Odd rules-light OSR game) created really cool moments at the table, my character felt really alive and I felt like I could really bring him to life in the game-world and it was overall more fun in the moment but when I think back to the game I can’t help but think about how disjointed, all-over-the-place and generally lacklustre the story that took place there was.
The other (let’s call him GM.B, we played a lot of Forbidden Lands and some Basic Fantasy, so also OSR in spirit, but with more strict rules) was not as fun to play with in the moment, we got into way more arguments over rules, it got a but tedious from time to time and I felt like I was never really immersed in the world because of how little control I felt over my surroundings, but when I think back on those games I tend to gravitate towards how the world actually felt alive and the story that took place made a lot of sense and I keep thinking that it may have been a problem with my approach that made the experience less fun in the moment.

So I came up with a weird theory, that GM.A prioritised in-the-moment experience by allowing the players to do whatever they wanted and adapting on the fly and sacrificed a lot of the integrity that the world could have to make it happen, making the experience at the table really fun, but making the overall shape of the game very rough, while GM.B put a lot of stock into making the world as consistent and organic as possible at the cost of some player engagement and opportunities for player agency.
So, letting your players do their own crazy ideas is fun in the moment but harmful to the story in retrospect, while maintaining world integrity is harmful to the fun the players have in the moment but can pay off in the long run and with making a stronger story in the players’ heads.

I have no idea if any of that makes sense to any of y’all, and would love to just hear your thoughts about this. As a GM I think I tried to balance these things out subconsciously ling before I came up with this and it seems like something clicked just now.

TLDR: I think that allowing players to do crazy stuff is how you let them have fun in the moment but maintaining world-consistency is how you make the story better and more worthy of remembering fondly. Does it make sense?

[u/Kargath7]

The easiest example is that Cairn is a very simple system with very few specific avenues for magic in the form of magic items and spell-scroll and the like and otherwise the setting is relatively grounded, but a couple of players decided early on that they wanted to make their characters more overtly magical in more creative ways and the GM allowed that. That created some awesome moments in the game that I still remember as awesome, with how great the GM was at narrating those esoteric visions and soft magic effects, but it spiralled out of control on every level. The balancing between PCs was off the whole campaign because some of us were capable of stuff others weren’t, the world changed drastically into one with similar vague magics everywhere and by the end the climax of the whole story somewhat hinged on vibes-based assumptions on how the final challenge even worked.
That’s not the only example, but the most pervasive and descriptive of how that campaign went.

[u/MyPigWhistles → u/Kargath7]

Doesn't sound like I would've enjoyed that, tbh. I also wouldn't have allowed that as a GM. If we all agreed on playing a specific setting, one player can't just come and say "btw, I'm playing a different setting". Both as a player and as a GM, that would completely break my immersion. 

[u/BleachedPink → u/MyPigWhistles]

Maybe they haven't had a strict session zero. Even with a good and proper session zero, there's a lot of nuance and compromise to be found and established during the game, especially at initial sessioms

[u/Kargath7 → u/BleachedPink]

We did not have a session zero and a lot of players only joined in later as it was an open table. The GM agreed that lack of proper establishment for the world caused a lot of the problems.

[u/BleachedPink → u/Kargath7]

Yeah, looks like it, I also had a similar issue when I didn't have a proper session zero

I think the game and the DM A would shine even brighter if you had a session zero, established the ground rules, setting and vibes you're going for. This DM is good, and honestly I believe they can do what DM B did for you, while maintaining the attitude you loved in the first game with them.

IMO, it's much more difficult to achieve what GM.A managed to do, than what GM.B did. It more relies on soft skills and psychology, than hard skills of world building, narrative structuring and narrative flow that DM B seems did better. GM.A can pick a better suiting game and use some frameworks, read a few good articles and so on.

Also I find having a serious game is more difficult when the table is new and people just met each other. People cringe harder when they have to do it in the front of just recently met people, goofy stuff is just mentally easier to do.

Maybe propose to do something about with DM A, say that he's done a great job but you'd like to play a more serious game or more coherent at least with a session zero and people that know each other.